Yo Unregistered: Join us for the April 1 meeting when it will be Recovery night. We will have demonstrations working with winching, recovery and spotting. We will meet at 7:30 p.m. at Jefferson County Fairgrounds (not Stevinson Toyota but nearby).

Saturday Daniel lead Stephen Rudy, Steve Powers and myself out to Wipe Out Hill. I had not been out there since my first CM. It was a great day despite the wind and weather beginning to turn for the worse.

We stopped at the Overlook and Tusher Tunnel before heading out towards Wipe Out Hill.

I noticed that the only pictures of Meanie you posted are the ones where you were driving it .

Meanie is turning out to be like an amusement park ride, everyone takes turns in it to do Hell's Gate. It does make it pretty easy

Meanie managed to make it up the Escalator too with nothing but rookie spotters. Had 1 minor wheel stand on the last wall, backed down a few feet, re-adjusted and walked the rest of the way up. Jade Runner made it up too albeit with a little more excitement and (wait for it) a manual strap for safety. But, he made it without a scratch and lots of vehicles never make that obstacle.

JonHaris took some amazing photos and videos on both Hells Gate and Escalator. Can't wait for him to post those up.

The mighty meanie had it's first trail breakdown later in the day about 2 miles in to Metal Masher. The steering felt funky so I stopped and checked it, 3 of the 4 high steer knuckle bolts on the drivers side were sheared off and missing.

We jacked the rig up, pulled the wheel, used Steve Brady's drill to drill a hole in to each stub, hammered the tapered end of a large file in to each hole and unscrewed the broken pieces. Fortunately I had some 1/2-20 bolts that would thread into the knuckle though they were 2"-3" too long. So we stacked nuts and washers on them to make up for the slack. Looked like hell but worked just fine. I have 2 sets of ARP chrome moly knuckles studs ordered and on the way, that should minimize breakage in the future.

I suspect the knuckle studs may have loosened up on that side. I was too busy doing wrenching sessions to check them my bad.

Then, driving back to camp going up the long grade on 191 to BFE, the tranny started to slip a little in 3rd gear. So, now I need to drop the tranny/tcase before CM. The TH400 has a direct drive clutch pack that is the most likely villain, probably just a seal going bad thats letting the line pressure to that clutch pack drop.

Oh, I noticed one of the Fox air shocks in the rear is leaking oil so I guess I'm going to have to re-build that too. Oh well, if you play you have to pay

Zach & I are sitting in the Grand Junction Walmart parking lot as the left front wheel bearing on the 80 is toast. Going to call Hugh at Safari in the AM to get the necessary parts to get'er repaired and home.

__________________Dave K,TLCA#20150,KFØDOG,'69 FJ40,'92 FJ80 {Isuzu diesel conversion underway} ,2011 Replica M416 w/RTT,'98 Taco Xtracab 4X4,Project='72 FJ40,'05 Passat TDI-DD."It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." "A republic, if you can keep it". Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money [to spend]." Margaret Thatcher 1925-2013

Zach & I are sitting in the Grand Junction Walmart parking lot as the left front wheel bearing on the 80 is toast. Going to call Hugh at Safari in the AM to get the necessary parts to get'er repaired and home.

Aw crap. And I had some in my parts box.

Did you find the propane bottle?

You would have not wanted to tow the trailer tonight anyway. Snow was bad, chains required on Vail (with a bad jacknifed rig Westbound) and Eisenhower and Eisenhower was closed anyway due to a wreck in the tunnel so we took Loveland Pass.